Redesigning Policy Management

Overview

Policy drafting already existed in Automated Compliance, but gaps in the document and approval integrations, along with missing state transitions, made it unreliable. Renewal wasn't a native flow in the product, and the existing renewal experience didn't make it clear when a future policy version was being prepared for renewal. Together with ad hoc distribution, that made it hard for customers to follow a policy from one stage to the next.

I took over the Policy project mid-stream, led the technical redesign, and substantially reworked the user experience. The system was already live, so I had to make those changes using existing models that couldn't easily be retired.

Reworking the experience

I wanted a compliance officer to be able to work through a policy inside Automated Compliance, from drafting through renewal, correction, and distribution. That meant repairing the existing drafting flow and its document and approval integrations, as well as making the policy's progress clearer in the UX.

For renewal, I reworked the flow to make it clear that a future version was being prepared for renewal. The flow tracks which policies are due, creates the next revision from the current active version, and walks the owner through distribution. Corrections follow the same lifecycle when an active policy needs a targeted update.

Working with the live system

Behind those flows, the backend tracks whether a policy is in review, active, due for renewal, or being corrected. That gives the UI explicit states to mirror instead of making the user infer them. Revision records and state transitions preserve who changed what, when they changed it, and why the policy moved forward.

The state machines also had to account for awkward cases: what should happen if a policy is corrected mid-renewal, or distribution fails partway through? I worked through those cases within the existing models as part of implementing the redesigned experience.

I worked with product design on the experience, and the previous technical owner helped me preserve existing customer commitments as I reworked the product.

Outcome

• Existing policy drafting was reworked within Automated Compliance, addressing gaps in document and approval integrations and state transitions.
• Renewal makes the purpose of a future revision explicit, with due-policy tracking, next-revision creation, and distribution inside the product.
• Revision history, actors, timestamps, and state transitions are recorded as part of the lifecycle.

Taking over mid-stream meant working with existing commitments and a partial implementation. I kept the pieces that already worked and used the existing models to support a substantially different experience for customers.